


Hold the mirror (to show me what I chose)

by evarosen



Series: losing you (it's just no good) [3]
Category: Terminator Genisys (2015)
Genre: Bad Jokes, Crack and Angst, M/M, really just Kyle being a love sick puppy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-05-03 02:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5272913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evarosen/pseuds/evarosen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John had showed unexpectedly to save Kyle so many times before, that he didn't even thought to question it when he walked through that door at the hospital.</p><p>Even after he learned the truth, he couldn't shake the belief John would find a way to save him, and himself. Sarah called him delusional; he called himself loyal. They both agreed it was a little stupid, but Kyle wouldn't admit it out loud.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold the mirror (to show me what I chose)

John had showed unexpectedly to save Kyle so many times before, that he didn't even thought to question it when he walked through that door at the hospital.

He'd climbed into the platform of the time displacement unit thinking he would never see John again, and then he'd been torn from him thinking he'd watched him die.

So after that, even watching John pull himself up from the floor in a patently not human way was a step up. He would have punched him in the arm and told him to quit it already with the dying thing if he hadn't gone through a wall with Pops seconds later.

"I thought you'd be smarter," John told him, and maybe he was right; but he couldn't shake the belief John would find a way to save the mission, and himself. Sarah called him delusional; he called himself loyal. They both agreed it was a little stupid, but Kyle wouldn't admit it out loud.

*

Kyle learned about the existence of his younger self shortly after they arrived in 2017. Of course he'd known, in a kind of peripherical way, that there was another version of him living a normal life; but it was a very different thing to actually hear the name of his parents, and know they too were alive now.

"Weren't you ever tempted of going to the past, instead of the future, to save your family?" he asked Sarah, when Pops was driving them to the safehouse after they'd gotten away from John. "I mean, would you trade...?" he looked at Pops, and back at her.

He'd been thinking about it, and was trying to decide if having reached the conclusion he wouldn't have traded one second at John's side for anything made him a bad person. Of course, he _knew_ his general thoughts and feelings about John made him a bad person in about a million ways in view of recent revelations; but he would deal with that later. Or not, if John found them first. Maybe he could talk to John about it and he would just turn around and spend the rest of his machine life trying to get as far away from Kyle as possible.

"Of course I thought about it," Sarah said, so low he barely heard her. "But just for a second. I mean...If I'd lived a different life, it wouldn't be _me_ anymore, don't you think?"

"Yes, you're right," he said, just as quietly.

"But we'll change this one thing," she said. "Skynet will not exist to destroy everything we loved all over again."

Her voice was still low, barely a murmur, and hard to distinguish. If he closed his eyes, he could pretend it was John saying this, that the low rumble of the truck engine was that of one of their transports when they moved from the base to a target.

But now John _was_ the target; and they were his, and everything had gotten so monumentally ruined in just a few hours. Or couple of decades, depending on how you were counting.

"I hate time travel," he muttered. "I bet John does, too."

"John doesn't love or hate anything anymore." She said, with absolute, complete certainty.

_That must have been great._

Not really.

He didn't argue. But he wasn't capable of agreeing with her, either. To carry on with this, he absolutely _needed_ to believe Skynet hadn't already destroyed everything he loved.

*

After they destroyed Skynet, Sarah kissed him. It took him by surprise, after two whole days of her insisting all she wanted was a life as free from predestination as possible; but he'd been in enough fights to recognize the spur of the moment, glad-we're-alive reaction for what it was.

"Even if you mate now, the chances of producing John Connor as your offspring are non-existing. The window for that conception has passed," Pops announced bluntly, just as they'd stopped to eat.

Kyle hadn't been drinking just then; he'd been chewing a sandwich, and he promply spit the bite on his mouth. Gross, but it was that or chocking.

"For God's sake, Pops, we're not going to! Ever!" Sarah said. She looked at Kyle's face, and whatever she saw on it made her squeeze his arm gently. "We're not going to, ever," she repeated, firmly, and her tone had more than a little pity. "Even if...it wouldn't be the John you knew."

And there were so _many_ things wrong with that line of thought that Kyle didn't eat for two more days.

He really, truly hated time travel with all his heart.

*

"Strawberry toothpaste? Really? You know that's for children, right?" Sarah said. They'd stopped on a store to pick up toiletries, after they'd agreed they would stick together for a while to make really sure they'd succeeded in bringing down Skynet.

"All the other are mint," he said. "In the future..."

"This is another John-related story, isn't it?" she said. She'd been patient with him, and had even asked him questions on her own, but he really was an all John all the time 24 hour channel, and was aware of it. He just didn't quite seem to know how to stop.

"No," he said.

"Well?"

"In the future, there wasn't a lot to eat, and often we had to make do with stuff that was spoiled, or wasn't really enterely edible but at least wouldn't kill you so..." John had really seemed to have an stomach made of iron and Kyle had never seen him sick, but he'd said it wasn't that kind of story.

"I fail to see how that connects with kiddie toothpaste."

"Some people on the resistance had managed to grow mint, and since I had a weak stomach they used to make me drink tea so it wouldn't be so bad."

"And by people in the resistance you mean...?" he didn't answer. She sighed. "And now the taste of mint brings you bad memories. Ok. Get the toothpaste so we can leave."

He'd really been more worried about maybe start bawling like a baby while he brushed his teeth and had her lose all respect for him forever, but it was close enough.

He got the toothpaste. Pops picked them up from the store and told them John was alive. Kyle cried his eyes out on the way back while Sarah covered her face with her hands and cursed under her breath.

*

"You know your way around a computer," Sarah said, as Kyle went through the security footage picturing John emerging from the ruins of the Cyberdyne building, dusting himself off and then just taking off as if nothing had happened. 

"Well, yes..."

"... _John taught me_ ," she repeated with him. "I'm starting to be afraid to ask in just how many situations you'd be capable of saying that same thing," she muttered.

Kyle _had_ spend more than half his life with John, so even though he wasn't enterely as skilled as him in pretending something had plainly not happened, he was pretty good.

So he _did not_ hear that.

*

"You're not just going to go in there and try to talk to him, are you?" Sarah asked. She widened her eyes. "Oh God, you _are_."

"My calculations on possible casualties..." Pops started.

"John's not going to just shoot me." Kyle said, with utter conviction. "Look, worse case scenario, he chases me out."

"And then kills you outside. Great plan."

"He didn't go straight back to Cyberdyne. Maybe he no longer..."

"Maybe he's a reformed unstoppable killing machine and all those speeches and assassination attempts were just to be dramatic. Plus, I'm sure he's not at all pissed we killed his master."

"Skynet's not his master! If he'd wanted us dead, we'd be dead!" Kyle screamed. 

"Fine! Go in there and let that thing kill you, the real John would be so proud of you...!" Sarah screamed back, and then she stopped, eyes wide. "I'm sorry, I know you believe..."

"I don't _believe_. I _know_. Because if he was dead, I wouldn't be here. And yet, here we are."

"It doesn't work like that, you heard..."

"I'm not talking about time travel stuff," he said, and went inside.

He sat down next to John, and they shared a drink. Nobody shot anybody. 

It was more than a little stupid. 

He also had been absolutely right.


End file.
